April 19, 2016 marks 100 years since Alberta women got the right to vote. It is a reason to celebrate and to reflect on progress made.
However, even though the ability to vote, equal pay, access to post-secondary education as well as election to the Senate and House of Commons are huge advances, we still have work to do.
Government now values women's paid work but a gap exists about care roles at home. Female caregivers still are treated as 'not working,' not productive.
Even though care of the young, sick, handicapped, frail elderly and dying is vital to any society, caregivers at home are excluded from maternity benefits, child expense deductions and even pensions.
The result is child poverty and lack of choice about lifestyle. The result of that is a huge cost to government to fund institutional or professional care of our children and frail elderly. That is simply unaffordable.
We need more choices and to have them all affordable. We have to look at tax plans to value care roles including universal birth benefits, universal maternity benefits, and significant per child allowance as other countries are doing.
Other ideas include pensions for the caregiving years, and household-based tax as a tax option so women and men really are valued for all they do.
There is work still ahead as we celebrate how far we've come.
Beverley Smith
Calgary
